The tragicomedy

Faced with the disparate and fluctuating foreign aid available to the Republican government, that encountered by Franco's armies was massive and frank. Germany and Italy recognized Franco's government on November 18, 1936, for obvious ideological and strategic reasons. How could they not be present on the battlefields?
Germany's essential contribution will consist in sending “technicians” and planes, few in number but modern in the service of the Condor Legion. In aerial combat, the German Junkers will easily get the better of the old Republican Breguets. At sea, the battleship Deutschland opened fire on the Republican cruiser Libertad to let the German ship Kamerun, loaded with weapons for the nationalists, pass. This naval engagement will be followed by the bombardment of Almeria by the Graf Spee. The participation of German "specialists" in the Catalonia campaign and the dive bombing of real targets will constitute an excellent preparatory exercise for the Wehrmacht for the next blitz campaigns in Poland and France. About 16,000 Germans will fight or serve alongside the Nationalists.
The Italian intervention will be much larger and more spectacular. It will be exercised over almost the entire extent of the Spanish theater of operations:first in the Strait of Gibraltar, then in the Balearic Islands, Guadalajara, Tortosa, Barcelona and Santander. The Italian workforce will amount to approximately 50,000 men divided into formed units:the "Littorio" division, the "Black Arrows" and the "Blue Arrows", in addition to a few hundred Irish and several thousand Portuguese, grouped in the Legion "Viriathe". In addition, the Italian government will provide the nationalists with considerable military equipment:2,000 cannons, 10,000 automatic weapons, 200,000 rifles, 800 planes, 1,700 tons of bombs, 10 million cartridges, not to mention thousands of tractors and vehicles. miscellaneous.
As more and more foreign
soldiers and equipment poured into war-torn Spain, delegates from London and Geneva discussed seriously non-intervention procedures. For the nations militarily involved in the conflict, the London committee is a convenient diplomatic instrument which they use with skill, reproaching each other for the aid given to Spain, without however ceasing their own. Only the British and the French will be sincere in their desire for control and mediation and will multiply the plans, some of which will receive the beginning of execution, such as the patrols of neutral surveillance boats in the waters of Spanish ports. As for the League of Nations, it will deplore, in its session of October 2, 1937, that "not only has the Non-Intervention Committee failed in its attempt to withdraw the non-Spanish combatants who are taking part in the war, but that it We must admit the existence of real army corps on Spanish soil, which means foreign intervention in Spanish affairs". No one doubted it. Such is the tragicomedy being played out by the great powers, one of which — Germany and Italy — ardently desire Franco's victory and the other — the U.S.S.R. fervently wishes for his defeat, while in France, and in Great Britain, opinion is divided, with perhaps a sentimental percentage in favor of the Republic.